(ANSA) - MILAN, DECEMBER 24 - "It still doesn't seem real to me, it seems like I'm living in a dream".
AndreaCostantino, the Milanese entrepreneur who returned to Italy this morning after twenty-one months in Abu Dhabi, is still incredulous.
In the capital of the United Arab Emirates, the man was locked up in a maximum security prison for fifteen months, on charges of financing terrorism in Yemen, and then after his release he remained locked up in the Italian embassy.
Costantino, 49, was able to embrace his wife and daughter again this morning at Malpensa airport where his plane landed at 7.
"The first fifteen months while I was in prison were hell - he said - because first of all you are isolated and you can communicate with the outside world only six minutes a week, this represented continuous anguish for me".
Then the living conditions in the maximum security prison of Al Wathba were "unbelievable, in the cell for four there were 14 of us - he continued - and without bathrooms. Not to mention the rats and the food that was served on the floor, just as people slept on the floor with only a blanket".
After his release last May, Andrea Costantino spent his days in a room in the Italian embassy and it was Ambassador Lorenzo Fanara himself who communicated to him the news of his freedom yesterday evening, "bringing me a divine chalice" as a sign of celebration.
As soon as he returned to Italy and after having embraced his family again, the entrepreneur first went to say hello to "the friends who have always supported me in recent months, those of Radio Libertà whom I thank for what they have done".
(HANDLE).
